Loading
Unit 5
15–25% of examThis unit connects the mind to health. You'll learn how stress affects your body and how people cope, what helps people thrive, how psychologists define and classify psychological disorders, and how therapy and medicine help people get better.
Longer videos that cover the whole unit. Good for a first pass or a final review.
Health psychology studies how your thoughts, habits and stress affect your physical health; long-term stress is linked to high blood pressure, headaches and a weaker immune system. Selye's general adaptation syndrome describes stress in three phases (alarm, resistance, exhaustion), and you can cope by tackling the problem itself or by managing your emotional reaction to it.
Key terms
Positive psychology studies what helps people thrive, not just what goes wrong. Research links gratitude and using your character strengths to greater well-being, and some people report positive change after hard experiences, known as posttraumatic growth.
Key terms
Psychologists decide whether thoughts and behaviors point to a disorder by asking how much they disrupt daily life, how much distress they cause and how unusual they are in the person's culture. Only trained clinicians diagnose, using manuals such as the DSM and ICD, and a diagnosis can help someone get care but can also bring stigma (unfair negative judgment). Each psychological perspective explains disorders differently, and the biopsychosocial and diathesis-stress models show how biology, thinking and life experiences combine.
Key terms
You'll learn the main symptoms and possible causes of selected disorders from several categories: neurodevelopmental (such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorder), schizophrenia spectrum, depressive, bipolar, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, dissociative, trauma-related, eating, and personality disorders. Most have several possible causes rather than one, and a diagnosis describes a condition a person has, not who they are.
Key terms
Research shows psychotherapy generally works, and therapists draw on several approaches: psychodynamic, person-centered (humanistic), behavioral (like exposure therapy), cognitive and cognitive-behavioral, in individual or group settings. Biomedical treatments include medications that act on neurotransmitters and, less often, procedures such as transcranial magnetic stimulation or electroconvulsive therapy, often combined with therapy.
Key terms